When a material is confined to one dimension, its electronic band structure can exhibit features termed van Hove singularities, which have been invoked to explain the sharp absorption spectra in materials such as single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). This model predicts a sealike photoexcited state of free electrons and holes. Recently, however, support has emerged for an exciton picture, in ...

In this paper reduction and its pragmatics are discussed in the light of the development in Computer Science of languages to describe processes. The design of higher-level description languages within Computer Science has had the aim of allowing for description of the dynamics of processes in the (physical) world on a higher level avoiding all (physical) details of these processes. The higher d...

There are ever more compelling tools available for neuroscience research, ranging from selective genetic targeting to optogenetic circuit control to mapping whole connectomes. These approaches are coupled with a deep-seated, often tacit, belief in the reductionist program for understanding the link between the brain and behavior. The aim of this program is causal explanation through neural mani...

Armstrong says of his theory of possibility that it is ‘reductionist’. Fraser MacBride has argued at great length that it fails to be reductionist because for some statements it fails to provide non-modal truth-conditions. I argue that MacBride misunderstands Armstrong’s theory because its aim is not to provide truth-conditions. This illustrates how great a gulf there is between semantics and m...

(Penultimate Version; final version forthcoming in Erkenntnis) Sara Bernstein Nonreductionists about minds and material objects think they have faced down the challenges posed by widespread causal overdetermination. Famously, Kim attacked nonreductive physicalism about the mental on the grounds that it would involve ubiquitous overdetermination of physical effects by mental and physical propert...

Richardson D. Is virtual reality a useful tool in the teaching of physiology? Adv Physiol Educ 35: 117–119, 2011; doi:10.1152/advan.00002.2011.—This opinion statement points out some of the considerations and pitfalls in using virtual reality computer programs in the teaching of life sciences. Emphasis is placed on the possibility of such programs leading to reductionist thinking including how ...

Multiple Realizability (MR) must still be regarded as one of the principal arguments against type reductionist accounts of higher-order properties and their special laws. Against this I argue that there is no unique MR but rather a multitude of MR categories. In a slogan: MR is itself “multi-realized”. If this is true then we cannot expect one unique reductionist strategy against MR as an anti-...